Here's the long story of how I ended up in the hospital...trigger warning, if you are easily squeamish, don't read on.
About a month ago, I started feeling very weak, and my digestion had been off. I was having bad autonomic dyslexia. Autonomic dyslexia is something that people with spinal cord injuries experience; that's how we experience pain. I was profusely sweating from where I can feel, which is from my mid-chest and biceps up. I couldn't figure out why I was in so much pain or where it was coming from; this went on for about 5 days. I was doing all of the things to help, but nothing was working. Finally, we noticed a lump on my right butt cheek; the outside skin looked fine, but when palpated, it felt hard. I decided to go to the ER and get it looked at the next day. Once I was finally seen in the ER, they did a CT scan and found a perirectal abscess and wanted to do emergency surgery right away.
Rewind two weeks, I had a new caregiver; she showed up an hour and 30 minutes late for her first solo shift, leaving me alone and on my side waiting for her to show up. Then, while doing my bowel program, she poked me in my rectum with the enema and caused bleeding. I was obviously concerned, but when I did my bowel program the next day, there was no blood, and things seemed to be OK. I never saw her again…
So back to the ER, when the doctor told me about the abscess, I said it might've happened when a caregiver was doing my bowel program two weeks prior; they found that hard to believe but said it could be possible. I had my emergency surgery on Monday night, November 24, and was admitted into the hospital.
The next morning, the surgeon informed me that they would have to do two more surgeries the next day, one to repair a hole in the side of my rectum and one for a diversion colostomy. He said I may end up with the colostomy bag permanently, and that people with my injury often prefer it and that I might want to think about it. I informed him that I absolutely did not want that. I have worked so hard not to have one.
After the second two surgeries, the surgeon said he was cautiously optimistic that I would be able to get the colostomy reversed, probably in 6 to 12 months. Fast forward to now. My surgeon has been very happy with my recovery, and he thinks in 3 to 4 months I should be able to get it reversed. This does mean another hospital stay unfortunately…In the meantime, I am doing everything possible to heal as quickly as I can, eating all of the right foods, getting rest, and continuing to get my movement. Once he saw the damage to my rectum, he said it did look like someone had punctured a hole in between my interior and exterior wall of the rectum. Thank goodness it didn't go all the way through.
I always try to make the best of a very shitty situation. We had many humorous moments while in the hospital. Starting with me shooting out of my anesthesia after the first surgery, more awake than the nurses said they had ever seen someone. This is most likely because I was convinced the very angelic-faced anesthesiologist before the surgery was going to kill me, saying I might wake up in the ICU if I wasn't able to start breathing on my own after the surgery and that they were concerned about my autonomic dysreflexia. Not today, lady! I have no idea what I was saying to those nurses after the surgery, but I do know they were laughing. I encouraged the transporter who pushed my bed from the ER up to my room to race my caregiver, who I had convinced to sit in my wheelchair and turn on high speed. We now joke about me having two butt holes, and that the drainage tube out of my abscess looked like my butt was smoking a cigarette (fortunately, that is gone now).
The last day I was in the hospital, my surgeon came in and said I was able to go home. “Rock 'n' roll,” he said. So here I am, rock 'n' roll...
